Unto The Grave
by Matt Morwell
Summary: Inspired by rayemars's In The Graveyard and the Yugi vs. Joey duel at Duelist Kingdom. The monsters sent to the graveyard ponder how wrong it is to battle each other while the real enemy sits safely on the sidelines.


_Unto The Grave_

_by Matt Morwell_

  


_A/N: Insert usual disclaimer here (YGO! is not mine) This is a birthday fic (is nineteen a lucky number? I hope so), so all you readers out there, pay attention! The birthday boy is giving something to you, for a change. After reading _In The Graveyard _by rayemars and seeing the DK Yugi vs. Joey dualogy on CN, I was inspired to write this little Duel Monsters ficlet. Enjoy!_

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The graveyard is a lonely place. It is a place where creatures of old will sit up in their coffins and scratch itchy limbs that no longer exist, and disappointed, they return to their eternal resting beds. It is a place where its lonely caretaker drags his sickle idly across the lumpy, gray dirt and clay that make up the ground under which long-passed creatures lie, dealing with intruders as he sees fit, wailing a song for the dead otherwise. His sickle has met countless intruders in the past, will continue to do so in the far future.

Yet there are a few, an exceptional few, it will not touch.

For they are just arrived, and shall not stay long.

Standing opposite each other within the wide expanse are a Celtic Guardian and a dragon knight called Giltia. Their green armor glints in the minimal, drab light offered by the crackling lightning overhead.

"Standing" is actually an exaggeration. They are both, in fact, kneeling, putting their weight on their respective weapons, saving their strength. They have been destroyed in battle, but expect to do battle again should the gravekeeper come to claim them.

"This is not right," said the Celtic Guardian. His voice was soft, smooth, lilting. "This should not be happening. My masters are allies with your master; why must we fight each other? Why needed you to destroy me?"

Giltia shakes his head in shame. "I did not wish to. My master offered me little choice. You heard what he said, did you not?"

The guardian looks up and cocks his head.

"Your masters do not wish to fight mine because they are allies. Yet in this battle, we are enemies... and must treat the battlefield as exactly that. A battlefield, a war ground, be it between friends or foes."

Giltia and the guardian turn at the sound of a slight hissing noise just beyond their view. A pair of menacing reddish eyes appear there, and soon after, a blue beak, followed by a blue-green, scaled body kept low to the ground.

The Armored Lizard does not speak, not in the way they interpret language, but its intent is clear. It is ready to obey its master even to its own destruction. That was its part in this battle; so should it be that his master is pleased, even with its annihilation.

Celtic Guardian points at Armored Lizard with his sword. "We all have that same determination. But it is with great sadness that my masters battle yours."

Giltia sighs and leans upon his staff. "Do you believe that my master truly wishes to battle this way? You are correct; this is not right, not right at all."

A growling noise emits from behind Celtic Guardian, and a familiar, fiendish creature steps forth, revealing a horned skeleton with glistening flesh 'neath its bones and a pair of glowing green eyes set deeply within its head.

"No," growls Summoned Skull, its guttural tones sending slight chills down the spines of those who had already arrived. "This is wrong. It is sick."

"Filthy," Giltia agrees, stamping his staff in emphasis. "The true foe sits as mediator of this very struggle. How I wish our brethren could be instructed to attack _him_ rather than each other!"

"Yet they cannot."

Giltia and the Armored Lizard turn to face the newcomer, a blond warrior garbed in blue and wielding a massive orange crystal sword. He gazed around at them, his blazing eyes piercing into theirs. "This battle is only what our master can make it to be. Our master believes in fighting honorably, even against those who have no honor... or have you forgotten his last enemy?"

Giltia can only nod at this; he remembers quite vividly his failure against that opponent's creatures because they were shielded from his spellcasting. He'd spent his time among them. They were lifeless, devoid of anything that would give them a unique place – a special place – in their owner's heart. To their owner, they were simply tools to use and abuse as he saw fit.

"It is foolish of us to wish what cannot be," says the Flame Swordsman. "Therefore, we must instead believe that some good may still come of this battle."

"Only one may win," says Celtic Guardian. "You know this."

"Yes, I know this," Flame Swordsman replies. "And I know how much our master has on the line. And look what we have placed on the line in return. Our lives are quite literally in his hands and he may choose to keep us or discard us. We are at his mercy. Just as you are at the mercy of those who govern your place in their lives. Do not tell me you do not feel the same for your masters..."

_Wum-wum-wum-wum_...

A grayish, sneering gremlin equipped with a tombstone and a pick across its back floats down from the deep, dark skies above and grins impishly at Summoned Skull, extending one hand in open invitation. Summoned Skull stares at the gremlin for a moment; he knows from whom it comes. This is not a creature he knows from his own master's possessions. Rather, it is of the creatures he has been forced to battle.

Summoned Skull's green eyes dim, as if it were closing them in acquiescence. The Graverobber takes its cue and hefts Summoned Skull by its ribcage. It would seem impossible that such a tiny, impish creature could even attempt to lift such a massive nightmare. Yet the rules of Duel Monsters disregard size, something their masters revel in. Not all Duel Monsters can be large. The creature lifts Summoned Skull high into the black sky and disappears.

The gathered creatures cannot help but gape at what has just occurred. They all remember the day they fought as allies, side by side, through a massive maze... they remember the creation their allied masters produced by fusing Summoned Skull and the legendary Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

Celtic Guardian blinks. "Yet... your master does not have the power to fuse two monsters!"

Flame Swordsman allows a grim smile. "If your masters have the power, our master will take it for himself."

A high-pitched screech alerts them to new arrivals on Celtic Guardian's side. They glance up, to see that Curse of Dragon is falling through the sky, soon to join Celtic Guardian. The unmistakable stamping of hoofbeats tells them that Curse of Dragon is not alone; beyond Celtic Guardian's back, Gaia the Fierce Knight comes into view.

Gaia waves one spear at Giltia, Flame Swordsman, and Armored Lizard in a bizarre form of a salute. "Your master has learned well the secrets of fusion. Our masters were caught off-guard."

"It is no matter," says Celtic Guardian, turning to Gaia. "Our masters will still prevail."

"Of that, I have no doubt."

Silence reigns among the monsters for several moments. What needed to be said appears to have been said, as far as they are concerned. Gaia breaks the silence with a snort. "I did not like the expression on his face."

"Our common foe?" asks Giltia.

"Indeed. He looked as though he were enjoying seeing your master's Black Skull Dragon attack and destroy us."

Flame Swordsman scoffed. "Probably because he _was_ enjoying it. His is a sick mind, to take your master's only kin."

Gaia scowled. "That, it is. And that is why he must be defeated. And I wish to be the one to take the last of his Life Points when the battle commences. It promises to be glorious."

Another sort of screeching rains down on the collective monsters; when they look up, they see that, like Curse of Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Dragon – the best monster the Flame Swordsman's master has – is making its way down to them.

Summoned Skull steps past the mists that prevent them from seeing further and rejoins its allies. It growls lowly. "I do not like being used."

Red-Eyes screeches something in a tongue only Curse of Dragon and Armored Lizard understand, but it is enough that those creatures understand. _We are all used_.

_Nnnnnnnnnnn..._

Between the monsters, a doorway appears. A doorway of light.

The doorway to return.

They all recognize it; at some point or another, they have all been privy to enter through that door and regain the chance they had thought they'd lost; they would glow in pride that they had been found useful enough to come back. And if only to be destroyed again, so be it... but let them have the second chance, if only to see what is happening.

Two bolts of lightning streak forth from the doorway, quickly informing everyone present that the one allowing this chance wishes to bring back a fused monster. The lightning wraps around Summoned Skull and Red-Eyes, and forces them to merge together, to create a massive, dark dragon that they all know by now: the Black Skull Dragon.

With a mixture of joy and apprehension, Black Skull Dragon affords one final glance at its allies – they are all allies in its mind, whether instructed to attack them or fight alongside them – before entering through the doorway.

The portal closes.

Mere moments later, the gathered monsters all sense it.

The match has been won.

Flame Swordsman and Giltia slump their shoulders. Armored Lizard hisses.

Celtic Guardian and Gaia give somber expressions to their enemies; while all had known that only one side could win, in the end, neither side wanted to see the other lose everything. Curse of Dragon screeches softly.

The monsters begin to vanish; they are being recalled from the graveyard by their masters.

"We wish you luck," Giltia utters, sincerely.

Gaia salutes again. Celtic Guardian stares across the graveyard at his enemies and finds tears springing to his eyes.

They are not enemies. They are comrades.

"This was not right," he whispers.

No...

It was not right at all.

  


[End]

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_Review, please?_


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